Marionette by T. B. Markinson is the story of seventeen-year-old Paige Alexander. Paige is found in her home with slit wrists by her girlfriend. Her friend convinces her to undergo therapy. Though Paige does not think it is going to help her, she decides to...

At some point in everyone's lives there came that time when we stopped looking to our parents as our idols and role models and started letting our friends be the bigger influence. In His Father's Footsteps is a tale of just that time in a...

Kid Ninja and the Notorious Nine by M. L. Hollaway speaks about bullying and the pain and hardship it causes to the person who is undergoing it. This is the story of Kevin, a fifth-grade student who is bullied in school every day. Kevin...

Poor Anna. That girl had a lot of sorrow and trauma to overcome, first with her momma dying in childbirth, the typhoid plague, and a flood that wiped out tons of her fellow townspeople and left Anna desperately ill. When she recovered, her father had...

Diving In Deep by Nora Ballew is a clever way of discussing the issues of weight many teens face. Kelly Eberly is obsessed with losing weight. She wants to be thin and attractive. She starts following a strict diet and she charts out a swimming...

Blog of a Bully by Stephen Zanzucchi is about Bradley Duncan, a 13-year-old nerd who transforms himself from a nerd to a bully when he is forced to move to another state and join a new school. This story reminded me a lot of Diary of...

Big Brother by Tracey Morait is the story of Ash and his mother Rhonda. Ash's life is not that of a normal child. His mother is an alcoholic and also into drugs. He faces many problems after his father moves to New York and his...

Ciao by Bethany Lopez is about Melissa and the challenges she faces in her sophomore year at Dearborn High. It's the beginning of a new academic year for Melissa after an enjoyable summer of relaxing and hanging out with friends. She is aware of the...

Righteous by Kim Lehman is a young-adult novel that centers around Righteous Andrews. She is a stereotypical teenager, at least until you look at what’s underneath the all-black attire and the bad attitude. This is the story of a girl who has been beaten...

In the novel Fall Down Seven, written by C.E. Edmonson, thirteen-year-old Emiko Arrington witnesses the most shocking events of December 7, 1941, through the window: the Japanese attack on the United States base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. While the unexpected attack prompts the US...